Clown prince: how Clive Palmer bought himself a WA media frenzy

Palmer’s spent half a million on ads. And for those who don’t watch ads, he’s spent weeks playing the buffoon, earning him more coverage than any other party running on Saturday, write Myriam Robin and Ania Dutka.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to the antics of billionaire mogul Clive Palmer. One is that he’s a ludicrous buffoon. The other sees a method to his madness.

After investigating his profile in the weeks leading up to the second Western Australian Senate election in seven months, Crikey is inclined to believe the latter.

When it comes to mentions in the national and WA media in recent days, Palmer is everywhere. And while he insists his WA candidates are always available to do media, he’s the one fronting the cameras most of the time. It makes sense — he has a national profile already, and his candidates are very much riding on his coattails. That means he’s been in the news more than any of the actual candidates from any party running in the WA election, according to iSentia figures.

He’s mentioned five times as often as the Greens’ Scott Ludlam (1042 mentions in the past two weeks, compared to Ludlam’s 229) and has totally blitzed the mentions given to the Sports Party (just 29 in the past two weeks). If we limit our search to just WA, iSentia says Palmer has been mentioned 171 times in the local media. That compares to 116 mentions for the Liberal candidates, 94 mentions for Ludlam, 81 for Labor’s runners and 17 for the Sports Party. In WA, Palmer is mentioned half as often as national Opposition Leader Bill Shorten (on 355 mentions) …

Media mentions regarding WA senate election (National)

Media mentions regarding WA senate election (WA only)

Of course, numbers aren’t everything, and Palmer’s coverage isn’t always positive. On Perth’s 92.9 FM yesterday, Palmer got an endorsement on the morning show and even a theme song (“He’s got 12 boats and he needs your vote / He doesn’t like Labor, Liberals or the Greens / He likes pies and cream …”). He got a frostier reception on Channel Ten’s Studio 10 on Wednesday. He told Tony Jones to “shut up” and hung up on 2UE today. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether Palmer was greeted with mirth or scepticism by the journalists he encountered — everything outrageous thing he said or did was promptly followed up by other media (Crikey included), so it all adds to the Palmer buzz.

All this free publicity is in addition to the millions he’s spent. The Sydney Morning Herald asked monitoring agency Ebiquity for advertising estimates for each of the parties — it estimated the Liberals had spent $53,000, the Labor Party $63,ooo (helped along by another $93,000 from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union), the Greens $114,000, and the Palmer United Party close to half-a-million dollars on TV alone ($477,000, to be precise). And according to The Australian, the PUP was behind 530 of the 892 political ads aired on Perth television. For comparison, the Greens aired 90, and the Liberals and ALP aired 35 each.

On Saturday, we’ll find out if his media strategy worked. But on current polling, he’s likely to end up with a seat, according to our own William Bowe, whose polling analysis suggests the Palmer United Party will raise its primary vote by 0.6% on last September. This doesn’t mean he’s certain to win; on some simulations the PUP needs to approach 7% for a better-than-even chance of getting a seat, and it’s currently polling at 5.9%. However, some have written of private polling data that puts the PUP at 10% — well within striking distance of a seat with the aid of preferences.

It was close last time, when Palmer’s electoral success took most by surprise. It was always going to be hard for him to repeat the feat. But by buying the ads and then appearing on every station that would have him, he’s done his best to boost his team’s chances. We’ll see whether it pays off on Saturday.

Palmer did the same thing in Tasmania and the result was embarassing. Despite all the money, quirky ads, publicity spots they achieved nothing. They weren’t helped by sub-standard candidates who shot off like loose cannons and Palmer himself has a knack for presenting as a rich bombastic fool (if amusing at times). Telling some call-back listener on air that he is right because he has 8 billion dollars and she doesn’t was the highlight of his campaign.

So let me get this right, a one man political party spending big in political advertising is questioned and is considered ‘news’ by the MSM but the MSM giving a free ride to a political party at the last Federal election is not. Yep, there is something seriously wrong with our so called democracy when it is hijacked by mining or media billionaires. Spare me the rhetoric when we get on our high horses and lecture developing countries on the democratic process.

One hopes West Australians caught Palmer & Garnaut on last night’s Lateline. Palmer made little sense, was relentlessly repetitive & even managed to tell his beloved Tony Jones to “shutup” twice. Having loudly professed Jones to be his favourite & most admired journalist in Australia one can barely imagine how boarish he is to people he doesn’t revere.

@ Aphra (#3), don’t underestimate the apathy of young voters. I had a theory our internet-addicted youth would overwhelmingly support Rudd’s NBN but somehow Turnbull’s sluggish patched version has prevailed.

AS one who doesn’t watch television ( except iView and SBS) and certainly don’t waste money on newspapers, I can’t say I have noticed Palmer. Frankly I couldn’t give a bugger what the media say about him.

The fact that he saw fit to gag his Senate candidate last Tuesday night was a joke.

Palmer has exactly the sort of rough hewn, “Shucks honey I’m wearin’ my good suit,” false hokum, “Dang it where did I put my hat?” ersatz hillbilly charm that is beloved by our country cousins. (Joh Bjelke-Petersen had it in spades.) The ladies of the CWA would lurve his persona
and the men would admire his smarts.

Now let us see if the rest of the voting public has more intelligence that the average man and woman in the boondocks.

Palmer’s mentions along with those of the Liberals in the press says as much about media bias as anything else. Some of the media more or less boycott the Greens so it is little wonder that they struggle to get media time. It is certainly not through lack of trying.

palmer may well be insane,i’m not qualified to say,but he isn’t when it comes to being rich,however,it seems he has a tax bill he hasn’t paid in hope of changing the law so he needn’t pay it,and i find that more than repulsive,whatever he seems to stand for,his personal interest seems to be a fairly top priority

@ William Bowe - You don’t seem to have much faith in the intelligence of your fellow West Australians! I hope Palmer fails for one reason only. If he succeeds, then it proves that politicians can be ‘bought’ if someone has enough money to throw around.
Then we are on the slippery slope to the American way of doing things. A very scary prospect!!

Clive is NOT a mining billionaire - his only “real” wealth (almost sufficient for a comfortable lifestyle billions …) is from Gold Coast real estate.
His putative billions refer to his coal options are are dependent on finding a partner with the cash to, y’know dig the akshal stuff out of the ground, process & ship it (via Abbott Point if/when that is finished)to.. ummm, China d’ya reckon?
When,not if he crashes, it will make Tinkle’s crumbling look like petty cash in the coffee club.

The outcome of the WA Senate election is a disaster for this country. One can only hope that the present government can’t do too much irreversible damage in the next two and a half years. Then they MUST go, or we are all doomed.

Mark@4: Maybe they’re finally learning how to play the game. It makes a lot of sense to invest in getting a Senator as charismatic as Ludlam re-elected. Not too many pollies’ speeches have got over 700,000 hits on YouTube.